Since last week, airfields at Naval Air Weapons Station, China Lake have remained closed, according to base officials.

The reason for the closure: repairs.

“Our runways are temporarily closed for repairs,” said NAWS China Lake Public Affairs Officer Peggy Shoaf by email on Friday. “Their age and the harshness of this winter has combined to render them unreliable until we can repair.”

As a result, take off and landing from NAWS China Lake has been temporarily suspended.

“All fixed wing flying has been curtailed while we get (the fields) back up to speed,” Shoaf said. “We’re hoping to start flight ops again in a month.”

Flight operations include the various testing options that are performed on China Lake’s test ranges.

Shoaf said that testing will be affected “to a small degree.”

Shoaf added that test activities “will use other air bases, like Pt. Mugu and Edwards (Air Force Base).”

The Navy’s Pt. Mugu base is located in Ventura County and Edwards is located 16 miles from Rosamond and 22 miles from Lancaster.

Other operations, like Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division at China Lake, will be slightly impacted by the airfield closures.

However, according to a NAWCWD official, it has not impacted the overall schedule.

“Despite the temporary closure of the China Lake runways, the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division continues to meet its flight operations schedule by flying in and out of Edwards Air Force Base and Naval Base Ventura County at Point Mugu,” NAWCWD said in a prepared statement. “The NAWCWD land range is unaffected by the runway shutdown and remains open.”

For commuters using the on-base air services, Inyokern Airport (IYK) has offered to take on some of the influx.

“We’ve reached out to offer our help and maybe open up our terminal, as well as ramp space and office space, “ Scott Seymour, general manager for Inyokern Airport, said during his manager’s report at Thursday’s IYK board meeting. “So far we’ve only had the T-39 here, and Phoenix Air is using Inyokern for all of its flights but not the terminal.”

The T-39 is a trainer plane used by the military for flight lessons.

On Monday, Seymour added that Phoenix continues to use IYK’s fields.

“They’re parking the planes on the airfields and putting them in vans and van pooling them to the base,” Seymour said.

Seymour said it was a matter of supporting the base’s mission in the Indian Wells Valley.

Page 2 of 2 - “The (memorandum of understanding) we have with the base works both ways,” Seymour said.